another. It is our fault, and not that of the poet, that Mr. Noyes had
to explain them: "It is no new wisdom to regard these things through
the eyes of little children; and I know--however insignificant they
may be to others--these two tales contain as deep and true things as
I, personally, have the power to express. I hope, therefore, that I
may be pardoned, in these hurried days, for pointing out that the two
poems are not to be taken merely as fairy-tales, but as an attempt to
follow the careless and happy feet of children back into the kingdom
of those dreams which, as we said above, are the sole reality worth
living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, or those fantastic
jests--if any care to call them so--for which mankind has endured so
many triumphant martyrdoms that even amidst the rush and roar of
modern materialism they cannot be quite forgotten." Mr. William J.
Locke says he would rather give up clean linen and tobacco than give
up his dreams.

Nearly all English poetry smells of the sea; the waves rule Britannia.
Alfred Noyes loves the ocean, and loves the old sea-dogs of
Devonshire. He is not a literary poet, like William Watson, and has
seldom given indication of possessing the insight or the
interpretative power of his contemporary in dealing with pure
literature. He has the blessed gift of admiration, and his poems on
Swinburne, Meredith, and other masters show a high reverence; but they
are without subtlety, and lack the discriminating phrase. He is,
however, deeply read in Elizabethan verse and prose, as his _Tales
of the Mermaid Tavern_, one of his longest, most painstaking, and
least successful works, proves; and of all the Elizabethan men of
action, Drake is his hero. The English lovers of the sea, and the
German lovers of efficiency, have both done honour to Drake. I
remember years ago, being in the town of Offenburg in Germany, and